Wrightsville/Bikini Beach

After a very peaceful anchorage in the Waccamaw River with the osprey and the turtles our next point of interest was the stretch of the ICW containing “The Rockpile”! Some of you might remember this as the very narrow stretch that was blasted out of rock. Southbound last fall we had come through at low tide and were quite intimidated by the ragged rock edges showing. We hadn’t been looking forward to a repeat transit of this section, but because of a slightly higher tide which hid most of the rock ledges, and no other boats crowding us out of mid-channel we had an uneventful passage. The rest of the trip that day would have been OK if we hadn’t had a mis-communication between reading the chart plotter and steering the boat going into Shallotte Inlet. We provided entertainment for those on shore as we ran aground not once but twice before we were safely anchored. The annoying thing was that we had gotten in there with no problem last fall, and it actually is quite an easy cut to get into.

Saturday morning we headed up towards Wilmington and the Cape Fear River. As we approached Snow’s Cut, one of the narrower points of the Waterway where the current can be very strong, we started slowing way down because of the falling tide AND the river current. When our ground speed dropped to just over a knot, and our arrival time at a point about 7 miles ahead showed 7:30 pm, we decided to anchor for a while and wait for the tide to change. After lunch, and a two hour wait we, we were able to make much better speed. We ended up going to Wrightsville Beach even though it was a bit farther than we had planned to go. We were surprised to see Gaia and the two other French-Canadian boats they were traveling with. As soon as they saw us they came over in their dinghy and Nadine immediately informed me that I was really going to like “Bikini Beach”!

Gaia had been planning to leave early Saturday but one of their outboard motors had quit running. They had found a Suzuki dealer and rented a car to take the outboard in for repairs. After telling us about the beach and bikinis they offered to take Sue to the grocery store Sunday morning.

Nadine and Sue with that "shopping" smile.

Later in the day, as we were going by their boat we noticed Nadine giving Louis a haircut. One thing led to another, and soon I was on the barber chair - actually their boat bucket. Part way through the clip job I found out I was only the second person whose hair Nadine had cut, but it turned out quite well (and even if it hadn’t, I can’t see it).

Louis doesn't seem to mind getting clipped.

Note the chair.

They were right about the bikinis. Every place we looked we saw bathing suits - on the beach, in the stores, walking on the sidewalks… The other thing we noticed was the average age seemed to be about 20, and maybe 20% had tattoos.

The beautiful people, as far as the eye can see.

You don't see this in Saline.  Check out the feet.

Later Louis and Nadine invited us to ride to Wilmington with them. We walked around the historic water front section of town, checking out some of the interesting shops. Some of this part of town reminded me of Seattle south, with numerous coffee shops. One small section of town virtually everyone had limb encompassing tattoos. We thought it was a little strange since between the four of us we don’t have a single tat, but then we saw a sign mentioning a tattoo convention or festival. Had we noticed that sign earlier I would have taken some pictures of all the skin art. We had dinner at a pizza place that looked interesting. Our second pizza was OK (half Canadian bacon and pepper rings, half Canadian bacon and pineapple) after they replaced the first Cajun pizza - burnt black bottom.

Here is a link sent to us by Gaia.  It's not one of our cats, that's for sure, but a great clip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXAs5lnRTw0&feature=youtu.be